Valdai Paper #26: High End Labour: The Foundation of 21st Century Industrial Strategy

The 26th Valdai paper presents the basics of a strategy for re-industrialization and economic rebalancing that starts from the highest available technology at the world level. For nearly ten years, the author has worked with researchers from many parts of the world, to study high-end production, the emerging market for high-end goods, and the way they are transforming industry.

The statistical evidence is strong: the key feature of these new technologies is their dependence on high-end labour. It makes possible an integrated industrial strategy which, at one and the same time, aims to compete at world level for a new mass consumer market in creative goods, and reindustrialize economy on a new and higher technological basis. The author considers that for realization this strategy the human development has to be the top productive priority.

The author of the article: Alan Freeman, Co-Director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group, University of Manitoba,Winnipeg, Canada.